Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

gloves). However, like the tanners, the local glovers and skinners died out circa 1770. 118
In the mid-nineteenth century glovers reappear in local records, but now they are female.
The dozens of ‘gloveresses’ listed in the 1851 census (especially in Inkberrow and
surrounding villages) were probably out-workers for the Worcester trade. 119
Although saddlers, harness-makers and collar-makers were concentrated in the
market centres of Alcester and (to a lesser extent) Bidford, we do find a few in this
Central Belt over the two centuries. 120
They lived modestly like most of the zone’s
shoemakers. Many of the latter were illiterate, but Henry Glover was literate and served
as parish-clerk, while Robert Morrell, though described as a shoemaker, was in effect a
substantial yeoman. 121
Although most shoemakers do not appear in probate records, they
were present in some numbers in these wood-pasture parishes. 122
They were aided by
females who go largely unrecorded, Emma Owines, a female shoemaker, and Ann
Wilkes, shoe-binder, proving the exception to the rule. 123
118 The last male glover was the appropriately named Richard Glover of Inkberrow, who died in 1770.
(WoRO, marriage licence of Richard Glover, Inkberrow, glover, May 1724, and Berrow’s Worcester
Journal 1 March 1770). The last of the skinners seems to have been John Hunt of Kington who died in
1769. (WoRO, probate of John Hunt, Kington, skinner, 1769.) This family had been tanners, glovers and
skinners around Inkberrow for over a hundred years. WoRO, probate of Francis Hunt, Inkberrow, glover,
(who is mentioned above in the textile section) mentions his son John, described as a ‘chirotecarius’
(glover).
119 WaRO and WoRO 1841 census lists some female glovers in this zone, but they are probably underrecorded
in this earlier census. In censuses female glovers are described as ‘glove-sewers’, ‘glovers’,
‘gloveresses’ and ‘glovemakers’.
120 For example, WoRO, marriage licence of William Moseley, Binton, collarmaker, April 1670, and
WoRO, probate of Thomas Moseley, Upton, (Haselor), collarmaker, 1685, £7-8-4.
121 Henry Glover, Inkberrow, cordwainer, signed WoRO marriage licence documents for fellow villagers in
Aug. 1699 and Feb. 1699/1700. R. Hunt and R. Jackson, More About Inkberrow, (Inkberrow, Jackson,
1976), p. 38, refer to him as parish-clerk. WoRO, probate and miscellaneous probate (814/2700) of Robert
Morrell, Aston Cantlow, shoemaker, 1666/7, £171-4-6.
122 Shoemakers and other leatherworkers who purchased leather at Worcester would be affected by the new
regulations introduced in 1790, where red leather could only be sold in open market (in a designated area),
as explained in Berrow’s Worcester Journal 2 September 1790.
123 WoRO, Kington 1841 census records Emma Owines. WaRO, DR360/79/308, Alcester apprentice
records, include Diana Archer, apprenticed to Ann, (wife of William Wilkes, stonemason, Aston Cantlow,
Wilmcote), 1838, to learn shoe-binding and dressmaking.
218